Binyang
A few days ago, I tried translating a PDF ebook using Ollama with a local Qwen 3.5:4b model. Translation speed wasn't an issue, but the final layout turned out poorly. My workflow was to first convert the PDF to Markdown, translate it, and then generate a new PDF. However, the bilingual vertical layout (Chinese-English) in the resulting PDF was hard to read and very uncomfortable.
I looked into this problem and realized PDF text layout is indeed difficult to handle. Different books have different content and require different presentation styles. Optimizing and adjusting the layout for each book costs too much effort.
Finally, I found that HTML is the most suitable choice—styling is easy and results in a clean layout, and my goal is simply to translate and read comfortably. With this approach, I'll continue to improve it later and use it to help me read English books.